Half a century later, the great Atlantic gale of March 1962 remains the standard for gauging storm peril for the Jersey Shore.

The storm toppled oceanfront mansions in Monmouth Beach, damaged Ocean City fishing piers and flattened most of Long Beach Island; it killed 40 people along the Atlantic coast. Along with hurricanes that ravaged southern states in the 1960s, the storm led to new building standards that created today’s seaside streetscapes of elevated, flood-protected buildings.

And it sanctified sand dunes as a system of natural defense.

“The general trend in development up until 1962 was to knock the dunes down and move closer to the ocean,” said Steven F. Hafner, director of field operations with the Coastal Research Center at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, which monitors beach conditions throughout the state.

“In some places, they still didn’t get it until the 1980s,” when towns began enforcing dune ordinances as a matter of community safety, Hafner noted. Even today, beach-fill projects bring complaints when the newly reinforced dunes block ocean views.

Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of the devastating storm’s arrival in New Jersey.

The ’62 storm and its effects “came at a time of rapid change along the New Jersey coast,” said Jeffery A. Gebert, chief of coastal planning for the Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia division. “Although a few New Jersey coastal locations were popular summer resort destinations as far back as the 18th century, the post-World War II era, with more cars, more income and more leisure time, marked a turning point for the Jersey Shore.’’

The construction of major roadways, such as the Garden State Parkway, led to the increased popularity of shore communities.

“The Garden State Parkway had opened only seven years earlier, speeding access to shore points from major population centers to the north and west,” Gebert said. “The coastal counties of New Jersey were in the midst of a boom in population, development and day-tripper recreational demand.”

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All were surprised

The 1962 nor’easter, also known as the “Ash Wednesday Storm,” actually hit on a Tuesday. Coincidentally, the spring equinox was approaching, along with a new moon, exerting higher than usual tidal forces.

Forecasters, plotting rudimentary and scant data on crude hand-drawn charts, had no idea the nor’easter building off the North Carolina coast was heading for an extended stay at the Jersey Shore.

“No one — no one — had any idea it would become this monstrous storm,” said Jim Eberwine, a retired National Weather Service forecaster who found his life’s calling while watching broadcast images of homes bobbing on the bay during the three-day storm. “They didn’t know it was happening until it happened.”

Wind and snow kicked up that Monday night, but the high tide early Tuesday morning surprised everyone in the seaside towns. Cars were standing in water over their hubcaps, and trash cans were floating in the streets.

On barrier islands from Barnegat Light to Cape May County, roads were impassable under flowing seawater and sand. Rescue coordinators called in helicopters from every branch of the military. The clattering, piston-engine aircraft shuttled between beach towns and the mainland, full of refugees.

The damage was widespread. Boardwalks were damaged, and several blocks of Avalon disappeared. Atlantic City’s famous Steel Pier was cut in half. Fires raged in Ocean City and Wildwood. A 376-foot-long decommissioned destroyer was driven ashore on Long Beach Island, where it spent six weeks beached.

Thousands of buildings, especially the small wooden seaside cottages prevalent at the time, were destroyed or damaged, knocked off their foundations or simply washed away.

The golden anniversary of the storms comes just as the Army Corps is slated to start the next phase of its beach-replenishment project in Long Beach Township, which is Long Beach Island’s largest municipality. The aim of the beach-fill project is to increase the size of the beach and dunes in each of the towns on the barrier island, except Barnegat Light, which chose not to take part because officials there felt their beaches did not need work.

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Improvements like the ongoing beach replenishment, more-restrictive building regulations and increase in dune sizes have changed the way an assault like the Ash Wednesday Storm would affect the area, said Long Beach Township Mayor Joseph Mancini.

“That type of storm would take a couple of homes, but not as many as it did then,” said Mancini, who was 12 years old at the time of the storm. “Now, we require homes to be on pilings.”

During the storm, dunes in the township’s Holgate section on the southern tip of Long Beach Island were only 10 foot high.

“You could look out and see the ocean from the porch,” Mancini recalls. “Now in that area, those same dunes are 20 to 25 feet high — that would help protect structures from the storm.’’

The 1962 storm’s peak high tide was 8.6 feet above mean low water, a record that was broken by a December 1992 gale that pushed up a tide just shy of 9 feet, said Hafner. But the key difference was the duration of the 1962 storm; it went on and on through five high-tide cycles.

After back-to-back storms in the winter of 1992-1993, the Jersey Shore was quiet until Presidents Day 1998, when flooding hit Cape May and Atlantic counties. Then, it was relatively quiet again, until Veterans Day 2009 when serious erosion again undermined houses.

Storm series often “correspond to El Nino events in the Pacific” that drive North American weather patterns, Hafner noted. “The general cycle repeats itself every 10 to 15 years,” he said.

Can it reoccur?

Will such a storm happen again? Yes, experts say.

On average, three nor’easters hit the New Jersey coast each year — far more often than hurricanes and tropical storms reach the shore.

“Will we get another ’62 storm? Yes. Will it be forecast accurately? Yes, 95 percent likely,” said Martin Ross, a young forecaster at the time who later went on to direct the Atlantic City forecast office for the National Weather Service.

But for Isabel Irvine, a beachfront owner in Long Beach Township, the thought of a storm like the Ash Wednesday Storm is something she does not worry about.

“It’s been a long time since the situation was right for a storm like that,” said Irvine, 67. “The beaches in front of our home have been well maintained. If there was a storm of that strength coming, I would definitely seek a safer location.”

While the New Jersey coast is better prepared with more accurate forecasting, stronger emergency management, well-developed dunes and replenished beaches, the property damage along the coast still would be devastating.

“With today’s population and the tremendous buildup along the coast, it would take years to recover from a storm like this,” said Eberwine, the retired meteorologist who is now the emergency management director for Absecon. “If we had the ’62 storm today, if we get the same setup again, all bets are off.”

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